


pause the tragic ending

by daneorange (adreamaloud)



Category: Skins (UK)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-29
Updated: 2009-04-29
Packaged: 2017-10-18 18:56:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/192139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adreamaloud/pseuds/daneorange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is something Naomi knows, and it is this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	pause the tragic ending

There is something Naomi knows, and it is this: That every time she wakes to you, it always feels like the last time.

It’s something she can barely help, though admittedly, the sex is fantastic -- for all your awkwardness, she thinks the earnestness, the eagerness, the sincerity all make up for it.

But in the morning, when the heady mix of alcohol and all the substances in between has cleared out, and all that’s left in their place is this dull thudding in her head, there is only one thought: That one day, she will break that heart, and nothing has ever scared her like this.

And the fear is horrible. Most moments the sensation is almost too much to bear, when she’s lying right next to you in the morning after and you are all skin. She almost always wakes ahead, and when she does, the first things she sees are your closed eyes and those half-parted lips, and then there it is – always, this feeling of something being crumpled into a tightly closed fist right inside her chest.

So she thinks, _This isn’t right_ , by way of justifying why she is getting up and getting dressed and, looking over her shoulder only to see you stretched out on her bed, she thinks it’s perhaps because it isn’t anything she’s ever considered doing, until you. Truth be told, she’s always been skeptical about trying new things. Oh this strong urge to be sure about something, and truth be told (again) she isn’t sure about you, isn’t sure where to put you, and it is this that is unsettling. You couldn’t fault her really, could you – after all, Naomi is the kind of girl who would want to be sure for most of her life.

*

Naomi remembers that first time you kissed her -- that time she caught you staring a millisecond too long. Naomi knew things, and she knew right from the start that there had been something in the way you had been looking all that while, including that Biology class, which was where you first met.

That night, everybody was on _something_ ; at the very least, there was alcohol. Drunk people did things, were *prone* to doing things, like indiscriminately taking their clothes off in the middle of the living room, if they were Effy Stonem, or sneaking into closets with random people, if they were James Cook (or the one with him.)

But then, you could be Emily Fitch (that which you were, actually), at that moment staring at Naomi from the kitchen, a half-empty bottle in one hand, a cigarette in the other. Naomi remembers catching your eye, and how you never let go, staring on the way only people who were not sober would.

Naomi remembers how you walked over, carefully stepping over the things randomly strewn all over the floor in between, and saying, finally, “Hi,” in that raspy half-whisper that would haunt her in the days following. “I’m Emily.” And then, an extended hand.

Naomi remembers taking it, shaking it, saying her name back, to which you said, “I know,” and then, blushing as you hastily added to explain, “Of course I do, I mean…” She remembers how you faltered a bit, remembers smiling inwardly at your softer, “We sit in Biology together.”

Of course we do, she said back, smiling at you, you awkward thing, before leaning back against the wall, eyes drifting over the ever present commotion in the middle of the room, which featured that of another redhead girl’s violent movements with some other tall guy.

Another redhead girl. And then, swerving her head back to you, she puts a hand on her mouth to suppress a wide open laugh. To which you ask, laughing as well, “What?”

“I’m seeing things,” was what she said.

She was still laughing out in full when you finally pulled her away from the living room and out to the porch, offering another cigarette her way and what’s left of the vodka in your bottle; she took the cigarette and politely refused the alcohol.

There was sweat on your brow; your hair clung to your forehead and your lips looked unrealistically soft. The lawn was empty.

And then, the next thing she knows, you were kissing her. It must have been one of those time dilation things that happened to people under the influence of mixed substances. You may have been sitting there for two minutes or thirty; Naomi’s sense of time by then was at best faulty, and those lips simply added to the blur. The next thing she remembers is how she was kissing you back, how she was the one who leaned in for a second try, and how, at parting she reached over for the bottle of vodka and emptied it in a swig.

“Are you on something?” she remembers asking.

She remembers how you answered, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand: “I’m onto something, all right.”

*

The first time you talk about it, school had already begun, and with it, the general avoidance in the hallways. A part of her hated it, how she had given in to a thing like that in the midst of drunken, stoned stupor, because it wasn’t a thing responsible women like her were supposed to do, in the first place, and wasn’t this how people got date raped anyway? Naomi shudders at the thought although, to be honest about it, half of the shudder is due to the thought of something else, something *more* happening between you and her that night.

And as consequence of such embarrassing thoughts, she figures, the avoidance thing would be a good thing – no, the *best* thing. And as if on cue, rumors start circulating about her supposed lesbianism, and she thinks, Well, isn’t this just convenient?

“Are you telling people I’m gay?” is how she asks you, head on.

To which you reply, flustered and blushing, “No,” looking as if you would have stuttered as well, had that not been the shortest response possible.

The truth of the matter is, as Naomi soon finds out, the rumors stem from Katie -- to whom, as it must be assumed, you confide in almost everything, including that kiss, which by the way confirms two things for Naomi: one, that it indeed happened, and two, that you also remember it, though perhaps not in as vivid detail; if the rumors are to be held true, you were severely smashed that night and couldn’t have been completely responsible for the events that transpired.

For someone who claims to not fancy girls at all, Naomi is unusually disturbed by this state of compromised free will.

*

On most nights, when Naomi lies awake staring at the smooth skin of your back, she remembers all of these things, tracing the sequence of events – bikes, forests, lockers and love balls all taken into consideration – that have led to this, to here, to now. On some nights, she is mostly happy to just take it all in, as if it were acceptable to bask in the afterglow and linger long, as she has been doing for the past few weeks. After all, isn’t summer just one really long morning after?

Then Naomi says to herself, “Perhaps,” quietly, and it is here that you start stirring, stretching a little, turning over to face her, absently reaching for her in the middle of sleep, eyes still closed. On most nights, she relents, kissing you – pausing the tragic ending, endings be damned.

*

On the day she breaks your heart, she tells you this was coming; has been, for a long time, like the way all summers end. You try to tell her about the ways this wouldn’t have to. “Let’s do this your way, then,” you say.

She shakes her head, biting her lip as she looks away. “You think that’s it? That’s what this is all about? Doing things my way?” You simply hang your head at that, saying nothing, looking somewhere else yourself.

“It was summer, you know. It must have been summer.” She tries not to flinch as she says it even, not to wince in the face of the downpour of sensations, the staggered influx of all the moments in between – the first morning after; the day she told you she was not leaving for summer; the several times the two of you went back to that bike trail; that afternoon in the lake and the pretty dress you had on; the way your ribbon fell down your hair; sneaking back into Pandora’s lawn for that inflatable house, for old times’ sake; the several shitty nightly parties that dotted both of your summer calendars; the way you look when you’re a bit tipsy; the way you stare just before you kiss her; the way you sound when she touches you…

There are many things, Naomi knows, that tell her why it’s worth the risk of continuance, but then, as she lights a cigarette, she reminds herself that this is for the best, that everything at some point ends, and what’s the use of giving it time to falter, the feeling? Not that Naomi knows anything much about falling out of love – at the very least, it’s nothing more than what she knows about falling in it – but just the same, she trusts the logic that has produced this conclusion.

*

That day she breaks your heart, you are sitting by the lake, waiting for your dresses to dry, for your faces to clear up after all that crying. The sun is setting, and dusk is falling softly all around.

And then, speaking up after a long silence, you say, “So it’s final then?”

Naomi looks up, sniffing slightly as she looks over at you. You are looking at her with a sternness that she doesn’t remember, and halfway through her nod, it is then that she leans in, suddenly, kissing you.

At parting, she only says, “Yes.” In fact, it’s the only thing she says as she tugs on the little clothing you have on, the heated urgency seeping out of her fingertips clashing with the cold the falling dusk is enveloping you with, slowly.

Naomi says, “Yes,” as she pushes her tongue in your mouth; she tastes like vanilla mixed with the cigarettes you’d both been having all afternoon. She says, “Yes,” as she rakes her fingernails across your back, as she pulls you on top of her amidst all that effort, as she gives way to your fingers in turn.

She says nothing else as that afternoon bleeds into that night, and all around the leaves begin falling.

*

Naomi knows that when she wakes that morning after, you won’t be there and she won’t blame you.

But then, there is something else she knows, and it is this: You’ll be kissing and touching and holding and fucking in secret, in isolated hallways or in empty classrooms; in pockets of forests or in her own room; in practically all the afternoons you can steal, simply because you won’t be able to stand it – the clandestine looks in class, the breaths held whenever you pass each other on the corridors, the way the air is so thick with desire when you’re within a mile radius of each other.

She knows this, and she knows you feel it too – this unavoidable thing between the two of you that you that wouldn't give a name.

 

Naomi knows it’s only some kind of tragic ending on infinite hold, and that in itself is tragic, just the same. #

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Rachael Yamagata, my favorite form of heartbreak. A bit rusty as I’m coming out of a sort of two-year hiatus, so forgive the lapses, and as Yamagata would say, Keep it kind. Cheers. =)


End file.
